The Prison Inside....

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Hello, I am Kat. I have PTSD and Bipolar type one. Living with this is very hard for me and the people around me. Having children is hard because they look at you as if they don't know how you are going to react day to day to , like spilling a drink on the floor. Truth is they are right. Having Bipolar, you do not know from day to day how you are going to handle the same situation as yesterday because of your many moods. I am not asking people to feel for me because thousands of people have this mental illness but to be aware that I am human as well. I must take medication every day for the rest of my life otherwise, I will not get up in the morning or care about nothing or worse go the opposite way and become manic. Having manic episodes is a scary thing especially if you have any addictions that you hide or just enjoy doing, such as shopping while on a budget but you just must have that sweatshirt because I just want it. I have gone online and spent hundreds of dollars on clothes and other stuff with half that amount in my bank account. Yes, of course I stopped the order but it's still a struggle to hit that cancel button.
I have had PTSD my entire life that I can remember. I was molested several times by both my uncles, and I didn't exactly grow up in a very loving environment. Having PTSD has affected me as person and my career. I get paralyzed if I see some person that resembles my uncles, I just cannot move! It's effected my career because you can not go into the military with that diagnosis, and yes, I did try to hide it in order to have a good future for myself. I have been in and out of counseling my entire life and currently reenrolled. I suffer from flashbacks at night and at times my eyes seem to play tricks on me, like I've seen one of my uncles out the corner of my eye.
Then you have the unspoken but hard to prove, if at all.... Emotional abuse. Hearing mean and hurtful words from family and others that are supposed to love you and protect you is just the worst. It is very true, in my opinion that words hurt much worse than physical abuse. After being beaten so many times, somehow your body knows exactly how to defend itself or where to protect itself; such as protecting you head if that person keeps hitting you in the head and so on. I now also suffer from low self-esteem and low self-confidence and so many insecurities about myself and my body.
I go day to day sometimes putting on a front that everything is just peachy, but it's not. I must constantly work on myself twice as hard in order to survive life at its cruelty and understand loving people, because loving people do not exist in my world. I am throwing myself out there for who ever to read this because I am not scared or hiding who I am or what illness I've got. This is me. The true me is strong. The true me is a survivor. The true me is mad, sad, angry and happy at times. I may be a mess inside but that's not truly who I am as a person, that is just my diagnosis.